Summer Throwback
Noffke Family Visit (June 21-25, 2018)
Josh and I have been best friends since kindergarten. Josh and Brad met at a summer camp in high school and rekindled their bromance in college. Josh introduced me to Brad, and the rest is history. Needless to say, the Noffkes are family to us. We decided early on as new parents that not all of our friends would be aunt/auntie or uncle to our kids. To us that is a very special role and one we take seriously. We use miss and mister as a show of respect for our friends. Josh and Brittany are the exception. They are Uncle Josh and Aunt Brittany, and we hope our kids grow to love their daughter Scarlett the way cousins love one another. Well...until Harvey and Scarlett fall madly in love and get married, of course. Then we will scrap the whole honorary cousin idea.
Time with these guys is never long enough. They always move mountains to make sure to see us during Michigan visits, but we were long over due for quality time together. I could have cried when their flights to Colorado were booked. The idea of multiple days of uninterrupted Witt-Noffke family time made me giddy, and it did not disappoint.
Seeing someone you've loved for 25 years love on your kids is a gift beyond compare. Josh rocks the dad mode effortlessly. Hearing him sing bedtime songs and wrestle around with all three kids was incredible. We took a picture together after a great hike with Harvey and Scarlett both sound asleep. I wish someone could have tapped us on the shoulder in elementary school and snuck us a peek of that picture. Look how far we have come! And to have created these beautiful families with such a strong tie of friendship between us is more than I could have hoped for.
We mostly kept it casual. We went for neighborhood walks, played a lot of late night board games, and reveled in the sight of three of the cutest bare booties you ever did see running around the backyard after a pool bath. We did get fancy to wrap up the visit with a spectacular dinner at the Broadmoor. So often I find myself wishing we had the Noffkes just up the street or across town. It would be amazing to just be able to swing by for a visit or pop in for dinner together. But it means so much that we have all vowed to make sure our kids grow up knowing and loving each other. A brainstorm is already brewing regarding the location of our next annual family get together. Already counting down the days!
The Highlights
I cannot write about this week without including this highlight. Or shall I say major lowlight? On Monday Brad's car was totaled by softball sized hail. WHAT THE HAIL? I stood out on our covered front porch watching this crazy hail storm during naptime, sending videos to family and friends while laughing at the chaos of it all. I had never seen anything like it. Five minutes later I got a picture from Brad of a car that had just been completely demolished. I was in the middle typing "OMG! Who's car is that?! That's horrible!" when he called to say that was Periwinkle, Perry for short, our beloved Chevy Cruze. Perry was our first major purchase together as a couple, bought a week before we became husband and wife. Perry carried us safely from Michigan to New York for our wedding and to every new home since then (that is four moves in five years if anyone is counting). By the end of the week we had the car assessed and confirmed as totaled by our insurance, who has 8,000 open claims due to the damage caused by this massive storm. On Saturday they came and hauled poor Perry away. We are officially a one car family until we can figure out what our next move will be. Oy vey. Not convenient and not in the budget right now, but we are thankful our house and our health are all in tact.
The Small Moments
On Saturday we went to a birthday party for the son of one of Brad's friends from work. Ever since Eloise could hold a crayon I have been having her help me make homemade birthday cards for her friends. They have always been a mess of scribbles. Check out this beauty. My heart skips looking at the details she carefully replicated based off of mine and at the backwards S in her signature. The best part was how proud she was of it, and how much she could not wait to hand deliver it and her gift to James. So much so that in the time it took me to turn my back on her for two minutes to greet a friend she unwrapped the gift to show James what it was. Can't win them all. At least our card was cute!
One morning this week as a desperate plea for just a few more minutes to prep myself for the day, I asked Eloise to go into Harvey's room and entertain him in his crib. I could hear them giggling hysterically over the monitor. Here is what I found:
The Ways We Grew
If we are talking literal growth here, Harvey's blonde mop continues to grow at a rapid rate. I can't keep up. This is such a new challenge for me given with baby girls it is simply a matter of grow, grow, grow, even through the awkward baby mullet phase. Anyways, Harvey got another haircut and aced it. Give the man a lollipop and he will sit through all the haircuts. Why does a fresh cut always make baby boys suddenly look like tiny, handsome men? Beyond his hair, he has a lot of new two word phrases in the vocabulary growth department that he uses frequently. Come on. Sit down. Cooze me (excuse me). He says excuse me when he means to say thank you and it is the cutest. He also uses it appropriately after he toots. Even cuter.
Eloise earned a major big kid summer badge of honor over the weekend. She got her very first bee sting. Brad was with her when it happened and reported minimal tears. True, tough Eloise form. The site on her hand was pretty swollen, but nothing out of the bee sting ordinary. As the day went on her eyes began to swell and redden. By bedtime they were pretty severe and her right cheek puffed up a bit too. We took her in, and she had a big panel of blood drawn to test for a variety of allergies, including bee stings. It will be two weeks before we get results back. We were told in the interim that stings happen so infrequently she should be okay. That should feels pretty scary to me though. I know subsequent stings in an allergic kid increase in the reaction severity. We would appreciate any prayers or good vibes you send out into the universe to keep our girl safe until we know more. She did get four Frozen stickers after her blood draw which obviously made the entire ordeal worth every tear.
The Eloise-isms
"I didn't sleep. I just snoozed. Poco Loco just snoozed too." -- She named her new llama lamp Poco Loco.
"You and me together, we can do anything, baby." -- Sung to Pooh Bear as she tucked him in with her on the couch to watch a movie. Dave Matthews would be proud.
Happy hump day. Keep going, you are halfway there! May your three days ahead until another weekend feel as fabulous as Harvey does rocking the pink, sparkly sunnies at soccer. My sister said he looks like a mini Elton John. She isn't wrong!
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